Santos Escobar is back in WWE after briefly being out the door earlier this week when his contract expired at midnight on Monday. The luchador was reportedly brought back into the fold thanks to a hefty new salary and, perhaps more importantly, assurances that he would have a more consistent creative direction, which was said to be a huge factor in why Escobar chose to explore free agency to begin with after only wrestling seven matches for WWE all year.
It’s possible this stronger creative direction could be related to plans WWE had for Escobar months ago. Bodyslam reports that, back in the summer, WWE had planned for Escobar and his associates, Los Garza (Angel and Berto), to have an extended run in WWE’s lucha promotion AAA. These plans called for Los Garza to hold the AAA World Tag Team Championships, followed by Escobar defeating El Hijo del Vikingo at TripleMania in August to become the AAA Mega Champion.
Ultimately, plans for Fantasma to defeat Vikingo were scrapped following initial discussions, and the decision was made to put the Mega Championship on Dominik Mysterio instead. WWE still went ahead with plans to put the AAA Tag Titles on Los Garzas, who held the championships for two months before dropping them to Psycho Clown and Pagano at TripleMania. It is unclear whether WWE’s decision to scrap plans for Escobar winning the AAA Mega Championship contributed to his decision to test free agency, nor is it clear whether WWE will now revisit these plans with Escobar back in the fold.
